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<h1 class='up'>Installing ExifTool</h1>

<blockquote class=attn><b class=red>Note:</b> ExifTool <b>does <u>not</u> need
to be installed</b> to run.  Just download and extract either the full Perl
distribution on Mac/Linux, or the Windows EXE version on Windows, and run it
directly.  <i class=lt>[But note that if you move the Perl "exiftool"
application, you must also move its "lib" directory to the same location. This
doesn't apply to the Windows version which unpacks the libraries into a
temporary directory.]</i><br><br>However, the benefits of installation are:
<ul><li>Makes ExifTool available to all users.</li>
<li>Saves typing on the command line (by placing "exiftool" in your PATH).</li>
<li>Installs the ExifTool documentation and API libraries (full Perl version only).</li>
</ul></blockquote>

<p>See the appropriate section below with instructions for installing or
uninstalling ExifTool on your specific platform:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="#Windows">Windows</a></li>
<li><a href="#MacOS">MacOS</a></li>
<li><a href="#Unix">Unix Platforms</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Also see <a href="index.html#running">these instructions</a> for help running
ExifTool.</p>

<hr>
<h2><a name="Windows">Windows</a></h2>

<p>In Windows, there is a choice of two different versions of ExifTool to
install.  The Perl distribution requires Perl to be installed on your system.
(A good, free Perl interpreter can be downloaded from
<a href="http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/">activeperl.com</a>.)</p>
<p>If you don't already have Perl, it is easier to install the stand-alone ExifTool
executable, but note that the stand-alone version doesn't include the HTML
documentation or some other files of the full distribution.</p>

<h3>Stand-Alone Executable</h3>
<ol>
<li><b>Download</b> the <b>Windows Executable</b> from the <a href="index.html">ExifTool home page</a>.
<br><span class=lt>(The file you download should be named "<code>exiftool-12.76.zip</code>".)</span></li>
<li><b>Extract "<code>exiftool(-k).exe</code>"</b> from the
"<code>.zip</code>" file, and place it <b>on your Desktop</b>.
<br><span class=lt>(Double-click on "<code>exiftool-12.76.zip</code>" to open
the archive, then drag "<code>exiftool(-k).exe</code>" to your Desktop.)</span></li>
</ol>
<p>You can now double-click on "<code>exiftool(-k).exe</code>" to read the
application documentation, or drag-and-drop files and folders to run exiftool on
selected files. To install exiftool for <b>use from the command line</b>,
continue with the following steps:</p>
<ol start=3>
<li><b>Rename</b> "<code>exiftool(-k).exe</code>" to <b>"<code>exiftool.exe</code>"</b>.
<br><span class=lt>(or "<code>exiftool(-k)</code>" to "<code>exiftool</code>" if file name
extensions are hidden on your system)</span></li>
<li><b>Move "<code>exiftool.exe</code>"</b> to the "<code>C:\WINDOWS</code>" directory
(or any other directory in your PATH).</li>
</ol>
<p>You can now run exiftool by typing "<code>exiftool</code>" at the command
prompt.  (To get to the command prompt, select "Run..." from the Windows "Start"
menu, then type "<code>cmd</code>" and press Return.)</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b></p>
<ol type='a'>
<li>In Windows 7, running exiftool may require administrator privileges.  If
necessary, this may be enabled by right clicking on exiftool, then selecting
<b>"Run this program as administrator"</b> from the Compatibility settings.</li>
<li>Windows 10 users have sometimes reported that exiftool hangs when run.
This may be due to Windows Defender blocking or slowing down exiftool. To solve
this, either disable Windows Defender or add an exclusion for exiftool (but note
that exiftool may still run more slowly if you just add an exclusion).</li>
<li>Occasionally users have reported that exiftool gives errors when running
this version for this first time.  It is possible this may happen if the
installation process gets interrupted.  In this case, follow the Uninstalling
instructions below then re-install exiftool. Be sure that you have sufficient
disk space in your TEMP directory for exiftool to unpack about 12 MB of
temporary files -- these are the Perl libraries used by the exiftool application
which are unpacked the first time exiftool is run.</li>
</ol>
<p><a name="uninstall_Windows_exe"><b>Uninstalling:</b></a></p>
<ol type='i'>
<li>Drag "<code>exiftool(-k).exe</code>" (or "<code>C:\WINDOWS\exiftool.exe</code>")
into the Recycle bin.</li>
<li>Drag the directory "<code>par-XXX</code>" from your temporary directory to
the Recycle bin.  Here "<code>XXX</code>" is your user name (in ASCII-hex for
ExifTool 10.21 or later) and the location of the temporary directory depends on
the value of the TEMP environment variable (typically
"<code>C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Local Settings\Temp</code>"
for Windows XP, or "<code>C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Temp</code>" for Windows 7
or later).  Alternately, this command may be used to delete these files:
<blockquote><code>for /D %d in (%TEMP%\par-*) do rmdir /s /q %d</code></blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>Full Perl Distribution</h3>
<p>You must have Perl installed to use this version.  (A free version of Perl
can be downloaded from
<a href="http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/">activeperl.com</a>.)</p>
<ol>
<li><b>Download</b> the <b>Image-ExifTool distribution</b> from the <a href="index.html">ExifTool home page</a>
<br><span class=lt>(The file you download should be named "<code>Image-ExifTool-12.76.tar.gz</code>".)</span></li>
<li><b>Extract the ExifTool files</b> from the archive.
<br><span class=lt>(The archive is a gzipped tar file, and can be opened with
various Windows utilities, including WinZip.)</span></li>
<li><b>Rename</b> "<code>exiftool</code>" to <b>"<code>exiftool.pl</code>"</b>
in the exiftool distribution.</li>
<li><b>Move "<code>exiftool.pl</code>"</b> and the <b>"<code>lib</code>"</b>
directory from the exiftool distribution to "<code>C:\WINDOWS</code>"
(or any other directory in your PATH).</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, if you have made the proper Windows associations for the
"<code>.pl</code>" extension (an option in the ActivePerl installation), you
can run exiftool by typing "<code>exiftool.pl</code>" at the
"<code>cmd.exe</code>" prompt.  Otherwise you should type
"<code>perl c:\windows\exiftool.pl</code>".</p>
<p><a name="uninstall_Windows_perl"><b>Uninstalling:</b></a></p>
<ol type='i'>
<li>Drag "<code>C:\WINDOWS\exiftool.pl</code>" and
"<code>C:\WINDOWS\lib</code>" into the Recycle bin.  You should first confirm
that "<code>C:\WINDOWS\lib</code>" contains only the "<code>File</code>"
and "<code>Image</code>" sub-directories.  Do not delete it if it
contains anything else.</li>
</ol>

<hr>
<h2><a name="MacOS"></a><a name="OSX">MacOS</a></h2>

<p>If you have installed the BSDSDK package from the Xcode Developer Tools
(<i>ie. if you have the</i> "<code>make</code>" <i>utility</i>), you should
follow the install procedure for <a href="#Unix">Unix platforms</a> in the next
section instead of the steps below. The Unix install has the advantage of making
the ExifTool library available for your Perl scripts, as well as installing the
man pages and POD documentation.</p>
<p>Otherwise, you have a choice of two packages to install: The MacOS package, or
the full Perl distribution.  Both of the procedures below install the ExifTool
files in the same location.  Installing from the MacOS package is easier, but the
full distribution includes HTML documentation and some other files not included
in the MacOS package.  Both versions run natively on PPC and Intel Macs.</p>

<h3>MacOS Package</h3>
<ol>
<li><b>Download</b> the <b>ExifTool MacOS Package</b> from the <a href="index.html">ExifTool home page</a>.
<br><span class=lt>(The file you download should be named "<code>ExifTool-12.76.dmg</code>".)</span></li>
<li><b>Install</b> as a normal <b>MacOS package</b>.
<br><span class=lt>(Open the disk image, double-click on the install package, and follow the instructions.
See the second item in the Notes section below if you are stopped with an "unidentified developer" message.)
</span></li>
</ol>
<p>You can now run exiftool by typing "<code>exiftool</code>" in a Terminal window.</p>
<p>If this doesn't work, then it is likely you have an older version of MacOS for which
/usr/local/bin isn't in the default PATH.  To fix this, add the following line to your
~/.profile settings using a text editor:</p>
<blockquote><code>export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin</code></blockquote>

<h3>Full Perl Distribution</h3>
<ol>
<li><b>Download</b> the <b>Image-ExifTool distribution</b> from the <a href="index.html">ExifTool home page</a>
to your Desktop.
<br><span class=lt>(The file you download should be named "<code>Image-ExifTool-12.76.tar.gz</code>".)</span></li>
<li><b>Launch</b> the <b>Terminal</b> application from the Utilities folder in your Applications folder.</li>
<li>In the Terminal window, <b>type the following</b>:
<pre class='code'>    cd ~/Desktop
    tar -xzf Image-ExifTool-12.76.tar.gz
    cd Image-ExifTool-12.76
    sudo cp -r exiftool lib /usr/local/bin
</pre>
<span class=lt>(Note: The last step above will require you to enter your
password.)</span></li>
</ol>
<p>You can now run exiftool by typing "<code>exiftool</code>" in a Terminal window.</p>

<p class=lt><b>Notes:</b></p><ul class=lt><li>Both MacOS installation techniques outlined above place
exiftool and its lib directory in /usr/local/bin, while the standard Unix
"<code>make install</code>" described below puts "<code>exiftool</code>" in
/usr/local/bin and the individual libraries in /Library/Perl/#.#.#, where "#.#.#" is
your Perl version. If both sets of libraries exist, /usr/local/bin/lib takes
precedence for exiftool, but /Library/Perl/#.#.# is the default for any other
Perl scripts.</li>
<li>In MacOS 10.8 or later, you may see this message when you try to open the install package:
<blockquote class=red>"ExifTool-12.76.pkg" can't be opened because it is from an
unidentified developer.</blockquote> The solution is to control-click on the pkg
then select "Open" from the pop-up menu instead of just double-clicking.  An alternative
is to lower the security settings by changing "Allow applications downloaded from" to
"Anywhere" in the General "Security &amp; Privacy" System Preferences.
(<a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491">Read here</a> or
<a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fix-OS-X-Error-Application-Can-t-Be-Opened-Because-it-Is-from-an-Unidentified-Developer-407375.shtml">here</a>
for a full description.)</li></ul>

<h3><a name="uninstall_MacOS">Uninstalling</a></h3>
<ol type='i'>
<li>Launch the "Terminal" application from the Applications Utilities folder.</li>
<li>Type "<code>open /usr/local/bin</code>" (without the quotes) in the Terminal
window, then press RETURN. (This opens a folder that you normally can't access
from MacOS.)</li>
<li>Drag "<code>exiftool</code>" and "<code>lib</code>" into the trash from the
"<code>bin</code>" folder you opened. You should first confirm that
"<code>lib</code>" contains only two sub-folders: "<code>File</code>" and
"<code>Image</code>". If it contains anything else, don't trash it because you
have the wrong "<code>lib</code>" folder.</li>
</ol>

<hr>
<h2><a name="Unix">Unix Platforms</a></h2>

<ol>
<li><b>Download</b> the <b>Image-ExifTool distribution</b> from the <a href="index.html">ExifTool home page</a>
<br><span class=lt>(The file you download should be named "<code>Image-ExifTool-12.76.tar.gz</code>".)</span></li>
<li><b>Unpack the distribution</b> and <b>make it your current directory</b> by typing:
<pre class='code'>    cd <i>&lt;your download directory&gt;</i>
    gzip -dc Image-ExifTool-12.76.tar.gz | tar -xf -
    cd Image-ExifTool-12.76
</pre>
<span class=lt>(At this point you may run exiftool by typing
"<code>./exiftool <i>&lt;image file name&gt;</i></code>".)</span></li>
<li><b>Test and install ExifTool</b> by typing:
<pre class='code'>
    perl Makefile.PL
    make test
    sudo make install
</pre>
<span class=lt>(Note: The "<code>make test</code>" step is not required, but
useful because it runs a full suite of tests to verify that ExifTool is working
properly on your system.  The "<code>sudo make install</code>" command requires
that you have su access, and will prompt for your password.  This will make
ExifTool and its documentation accessible to all users on your system. If you
don't have su access, you can run ExifTool in your own account by moving
"<code>exiftool</code>" and its "<code>lib</code>" directory to any convenient
location, preferably somewhere in your PATH.)</span></li>
</ol>
<p>You can now run exiftool by typing "<code>exiftool</code>".  Also, you can
consult the ExifTool documentation with commands like:</p>
<blockquote><pre class='code'>perldoc exiftool
perldoc Image::ExifTool
perldoc Image::ExifTool::TagNames
</pre></blockquote>
<p>or</p>
<blockquote><pre class='code'>man exiftool
man Image::ExifTool
man Image::ExifTool::TagNames
</pre></blockquote>

<h3><a name="uninstall_Unix">Uninstalling</a></h3>
<ol type='i'>
<li>Type "<code>sudo make uninstall</code>" from the distribution directory.
<br><span class=lt>(Note: Unfortunately, newer systems may give an <i>"Uninstall
is unsafe and deprecated"</i> message even though uninstalling ExifTool is safe
because it has no dependencies.  If this happens, the necessary commands to
remove the installed files will be listed, and these commands must be run
manually.)</span></li>
</ol>

<hr>
<p class='lf'><a href="index.html">&lt;-- Back to ExifTool home page</a></p>
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